


To Keep a Caged Bird Willing

by MarbleAide



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha Sebastian, Alpha Severin, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Animal Death, Beta Jim, Cum Play, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Omega Richard, Omega Verse, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleAide/pseuds/MarbleAide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Submission is written among the lines of your DNA, but it's still a choice as to whether you fall to your knees or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Keep a Caged Bird Willing

Ever since Richard could remember, people liked to call him ‘a miracle’ as if that was a compliment.

For the first four years of his life, the word doesn’t really matter to him. It’s spoken in his ears like a whisper on the curtains and leaves him there simply to watch for a moment before it is gone, forgotten, on a breeze that comes by to steal it away. His mother says it the most, because she also talks a lot about God and the two are something like the same thing. She says it in a hushed voice in the night, holding him in her arms while she rocks back and forth talking as well about how lucky they are, how proud, how special he is.

Richard doesn’t understand, doesn’t know any better, so he just sucks up the attention, smiling when is little brain deems it appropriate and has not yet become so honed to realize the feeling making the corner of his lips twitch is his brother staring at him from the small bed across the room. He’s just staring and listening and knowing in the way that Jim always knows, because no one ever holds him like that, no one ever whispers softly in his ears under the moonlight, and no one has ever once called him ‘a miracle’. 

When he enters school, he knows what the word means and like any young child would do, he eats it up. He knows that it’s a good thing when grown-ups pet at his hair, knows it’s a happy moment when they take the time to press kisses into his forehead or all around his face so he giggles and giggles until they stop. He knows very well what the word means, but has no idea why, but that’s really alright with him.

When he’s seven, it’s the first time Jim shatters his little bubble of ignorance. Crawls into bed with him one night and hisses in his ear how ‘mummy and da only love you because you have the right bits!’ while poking bony little fingers into Richard’s stomach as if that is supposed to mean something to Richard. And it will, of course, but right now Richard’s just scared, because he’s almost always scared of Jim as he glares at him and breaks his toys and brings home dead things that he found in the tall grass down the road.

That night Richard curls away from his brother, pouts as hard as he can to give Jim the dirtiest look he can think of—learned from watching his twin so closely—and gives his reply in a voice that holds confidents in a manner that Richard will never have again.

“You’re just jealous because I’m a miracle and you’re not! Nobody even likes you!”

Jim doesn’t take this lightly, because he hits his brother in the stomach this time with a closed fist, lower than his belly button hard enough to make Richard wail and start to cry. Their mother comes in a moment later and scolds Jim, throws him back to his own bed and shouts about hurting Richard before bundling the crying boy into her arms and takes him away. Richard sleeps with his parents that night and Jim doesn’t sleep at all.

Being a miracle doesn’t feel like it’s a good thing anymore when he’d twelve and learning more. He learns why people suddenly smell different. Learns why at some points he feels sick for days. Learns what being an ‘Omega’ really means and learns why his parents loved him so much.

Identical twins always produce the same secondary gender just like they do the primary. In some very special, very rare cases that simply wasn’t the case. Jim and Richard ending up being that case, as the second little baby turned out to be an Omega instead of the Beta they were expecting. It’s a miracle in the fact that Omegas are rare, special, and bring a pretty penny if another family finds an interest.

And Jim’s always there to remind Richard of that fact if he forgets, even though he never does.

He gets nervous in school now, because he knows what the looks of some of his classmates mean. How many of them stare at him longer and why he’s bumped and touched in the hallways much more so then he used to be. It makes him think, because he’s been to wrapped up in a bubble for his entire life—coddled and made to sit quietly, accept the affection he’s been given by anyone who wants to give it and he knows, knows, it’s all just been conditioning.

At thirteen Richard finally thinks for himself, thinks silently because he’s still been told to keep quiet above all else, but think he still does and finds himself crying quietly because of it.

He doesn’t want to be sold. He doesn’t want to be given away and be used to breed heirs for the rest of his life. 

It’s then that Jim comes out, wraps his arms around his brother in a manner he’s never done before, but makes him feel safer then he’s felt in a long time all the same. Cuddles up to him in a bed they haven’t shared in so long, with his neutral scent not clogging up Richard’s nose, and Jim lets him cry against his chest for a long while. Richard doesn’t see the smile on Jim’s face, but right now it doesn’t matter, because after he’s done with the tears Jim presses his lips to Richard’s ear in a way that is too close and too hot and speaks.

‘I’ll protect you, Richie,’ He says, ‘I’ll make sure no one takes you away. Make sure no one touches you. Make sure you can do whatever you want with your life.’ And it sounds like the most amazing thing in the world right now. ‘Just have to promise me something, okay?’

So Richard does, he promises, even though he doesn’t know what it is, but he’s scared and Jim’s never been so nice to him before.

‘Just promise that you’ll always be mine.’

And he does.

\---

In that same month, Jim hurts someone for the first time with Richard on his mind. Three broken fingers on a guy who thought it would be fun to see how much Richard’s arse bounced when he slapped it. Half an hour later he was getting sent to the hospital for his pointer and thumb on his right hand being broken in two places, while his left only the middle finger was snapped back.

Jim was suspended for a week and carried bruises from their dad’s hand for half that time. Richard cuddled up next to him, made sure Jim had ice for his eye, and thanked him with a kiss to the cheek as they fell asleep together. He woke up with one of Jim’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist and thought nothing of it. 

One day, Richard came home to find Jim with feather’s all over their room and blood staining bits of the carpet. Nails had been embedded into the floor, stabbed through the wings of a crow that now lay on their floor with its body pulled apart, little ribs cracked and organs cut out from its chest.

Richard felt sick, had to look away while his brother plucked out each feather from both wings one at a time.

“What are you doing?” He asked, biting at his lip.

“Practicing.” Came the simple reply and no explanation to accompany it.

Richard didn’t ask, accepted it, turning his head the other way when Jim brought in more birds to ‘practice’ on—said nothing when he upgraded to small mammals. When he mentioned they were better, because they were more like us.

The violence only grows, both in private and in public as Jim shows just what happens when anyone tries to touch his brother and likes to show Richard what he’ll do to them later by carving up the dead bodies of rabbits.

It makes it hurt that much more when Jim decides to give him the nickname of ‘Bunny’ and starts using that more often than his actual name.

It makes him wonder.

\---

The first time Richard goes into heat is the first time Jim kills someone, because Richard doesn’t understand why Jim would come back to their room smelling so much like sweat and earth with the underlying scent of thick copper for any other reason besides that. It makes Richard’s stomach tighten and he groans, curls in on himself even more, and cries.

The first heat is always spent alone for an Omega who’s not yet been claimed by an Alpha. It’s a rite of passage, of sorts, done so any Omega knows what it feels like to go without—so they’re deterred from thinking they don’t need a proper mate. It’s to keep them in their place, because the cold sweats, full body shutters, and cramps that make Richard think some vital organ has exploded inside his pelvic is almost too much to bare.

The pain makes him want to pass out, but his ever rising heartbeat and the pounding in his head simply refuse to let his body do so. No one ever told him it would be this bad. He’d never read about how horrible having nobody there to quench the hollowed out need that consumes his body and mind could be. Richard thinks that maybe it’s worth it, worth it to be given away to someone—anyone—if it meant never having to go through with this ever again. He thinks this is what hell must feel like. He thinks that maybe he’ll die before the days have passed and has to wonder why it must be days that he suffers when others don’t have to do so at all.

When Jim shows up, Richard thinks he’ll only make it worse. He’s not supposed to be near anyone, their parents locked Richard up hours ago when he’d gotten home from school so he could get through his heat in solitude. Somehow, Jim is still there and Jim smells like death, like a corpse raised from the cold ground, clawed his way up, and Richard thinks he’ll be sick.

There isn’t much protest when Jim crawls up behind him, but his throat lets out a sharp cry anyway. Jim’s not what he wants in the fact that Jim isn’t an Alpha, but Richard can’t help but press back against him. Crave the touch that Jim brings with him, even if he smells horrid, awful, invades Richard’s nose and makes everything seem worse than it is.

He’s panting. He’s crying. His body shakes with tremors he can’t control and he’s too hot and cold at the same time.

And Jim just takes him. Breathes him in, buries his nose right into Richard’s hair and inhales until his lungs will surely pop before letting it out. One of his arms goes around Richard’s waist, pulling him closer, holding him down so he can’t struggle as much. His other moves down so his fingers can slide along his spine, over the curve of his arse, before diving between the cheeks and lets his fingers glide through the wetness he finds there. Richard’s almost scared he might press inside him, fuck him out with his fingers, while at the same time that idea seems amazing, so amazing, and maybe he’d get lucky and Jim will want to do more, give him more, just take away this horrible ache in his gut that Richard so desperately craves to have disappear.

But he doesn’t fuck him, doesn’t enter his body, just collects the lubricant between his fingers to move around Richard’s skin, making him shiny with it, sticky, spreading the smell of fertile Omega all around his body so he reeks like a ripe whore. He pets at his entrance, pressing the pads of his two fingers over and over the little hole, but never dives in, just stays right there so Richard knows.

There are words being spoken in his ear that Richard never hears. He’s too deafened by pain and craving to hear anything besides the loud thundering of his own blood pumping through his ears, feels the rhythm of his heartbeat too thick in his veins.

He sleeps like that. With Jim’s voice lost in his head and his fingers touching his body, curling up naked right to his brother’s chest who he’s quite positive just murdered someone for his sake.

And, well, in the moment Richard’s okay with that.

\---

At the end of it all, they run away together. After Jim had killed four other people and Richard killed one.

It’s fine, because Jim’s been working on things. Working to get his name out there, working to build up something for himself in a way that both brings him power and respect while fear is slowly spread through the veins of anyone who speaks his chosen name.

Richard goes unclaimed, unbonded to anyone and has yet to feel the touch of an Alpha besides the groping hands that land across his skin without his permission, but they never stay there for long. Just like Jim had promised him all those years ago. He’s protected, if not sheltered, and spends much of his time at home in Jim’s flat that they share where it’s safe and warm. He takes on the role of a willing Omega housewife without even knowing it, cooking and cleaning and always making sure Jim is happy before he sleeps in any way possible.

They both grow accustom to the touch of each other in the sense that neither finds it necessary to seek out another partner or cover their modesty. It’s not strange for Jim to fall asleep only after Richard crawls under the covers and wraps his lips around his cock, sucking until he comes and kisses him right afterwards just to show Jim he did a good job.

During Richard’s heats, there’s an assortment of toys that Jim’s bought for the occasion, but none of the fake Alpha cocks with their grotesquely large knots come into play until Richard’s on the verge of passing out from needing it so badly. Jim’s even gone as far as to get Alpha musk, pheromones he wears like cologne when he beds Richard, just to hear him beg all the prettier and present himself down on all four like any good Omega should for their Alpha.

Normally, Richard’s heats last about a week simply because he both doesn’t have a real Alpha and Jim likes to drag it out as much as possible. Never shoves him full of plastic until Richard is sobbing and there’s nothing left in Jim’s own cock to squeeze out into him, though the seed doesn’t take as it should he still loves to watch it drip out of Richard’s puffy, swollen hole. 

He does so love the look of his brother covered in cum. He’s bought some fake stuff multiple times, simply because his body can’t supply and he refuses to let anyone else come and touch Richard. Sometimes, he covers him. Squeezes out the fake semen from a fake cock to smear it all over Richard’s face, who’s just too wanton and debauched to even care, opens his mouth to suck it down, lets it stick to his eye lashes and clump in his hair. It’s one of the prettiest sights Jim thinks he’s ever seen and calls Richard a slut all the while, squeezing his hand around his throat just to see him gasp a little bit more. It’s good. It’s perfect. Because Richard just takes it, thinks Jim’s doing him a favor by helping him through his heats, making sure no one dare lay a finger on him without suffering a fracture to it. Thinks he’s safe with Jim, that this is normal, how he uses him like this and keeps him at home and calls him ‘Bunny’ because it makes Richard blush, looks down in that wonderfully submissive manner that he doesn’t even realize is so conditioned in him it’s written all over his DNA.

This is how the two of them lived, together, as Jim worked his way up the ladder of underground crime and Richard kept at home waiting for him. Everything was just so very wonderful.

That is, until the Moran’s showed up.

**Author's Note:**

> Still don't really know what this is? Got inspired by the mormor tag on tumblr and I'm not quite sure where this is really going...but all the same, I'm writing it. There will probably be three parts to this, home you enjoyed.


End file.
